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Comments Ryanair has come under fire from the Advertising Standards Agency for an ad featuring a "saucy schoolgirl". Despite being ordered to, Ryanair refused to withdraw the ad. You were disbelieving and appreciative:

So, let me get this straight... they placed an advert in a few newspapers, which a couple of people complained about.

As a result of their complaints, loads more people saw it (when the ASA didn't like it).

As a result of this withdrawal request, a lot more people will see it.

By refusing to comply with the ASA, even more people will see it.

So to conclude, publishing a controversial ad, then refusing to withdraw it is the best way to reach the widest demographic.

Something seems wrong there.

Anonymous Coward

When I read this story on the BBC website earlier I was disappointed they hadn't included the picture. I knew I could count on The Register to satisfy my requirements.

James

Always happy to please.

can we somehow anti-complain to the ASA?

"dear ASA, i really liked this advert, it got across an appropriate message in a reasonable fashion.

lots of love

blokes wot like schoolgirls"

Anonymous Coward

Dont these guys consider their brand image.. the ad might not be so bad to most people, doesnt bother me. However you will still associate the base level of the ad to their brand.

So the fact they kick off with the ASA makes me place them in the gutter level of companies, ie dont care.. and therefore wont care about me if I was on their plane and further strengthens the fact I would never fly with them.

Looking at the sales of French Connection since they started their FCUK stuff, they are now seen as a cheap and chav clothing brand. I dont know anybody that will shop there now.

Cheap flash in the pan tricks, in the long run cost you dearly...

Anonymous Coward

"Dont these guys consider their brand image.. the ad might not be so bad to most people, doesnt bother me. However you will still associate the base level of the ad to their brand."

Dude, it's Ryan Air - you were never going to bump into the Crown Prince of Brunei on a budget flight to Malaga.

Frankly, the "base level" of the ad is spot on for Ryanair.

Steve

Blue eyed people are mutants, and they are all descended from the same person. Thus ran the conclusions of a University of Copenhagen team researching the matter. They place the original blue-eyes at around 6-10,000 years ago. As a solidly blue-eyed hack, I welcome the news that I'm related to the great Paris Hilton.

Cool, this means I am a mutant and my power is .... blues eyes, hmmm okay not a as good as I hoped.

Michael Jolly

If you concentrate hard enough, blue eyes can shoot lasers.

I would disagree with the authors that it is neither a positive nor negative mutation. I believe it is positive, if only in subtle proportions. Consider the following: **two identical humans** One human has bright sparkling blue eyes and the other has brown eyes. The human with blue eyes will have a slightly easier time in life vs. the one with brown eyes because fellow humans are drawn to beautiful things, and the piercing blue eyes are just that - beautiful. This will allow the blue eyed human to possibly choose a more gifted mate. Thus the favored continuation of the gene line over the eons. Seems like a no-brainer to me.....

Chris Adams

It doesn't need to affect your ability to survive to keep going; it needs to affect your ability to survive long enough to reproduce. You can survive to be a hundred, but if you don't reproduce, the mutation will die out.

So, the first blue eyed person, despite looking VERY weird if everyone else had brown eyes, must have got their leg over, thus proving that blue eyed boys get the girls. Or vice versa. Or something.

PS. Paris Hilton. Blue eyes. Mutant. QED.

Onionman

That Swedish bird I shagged a few years ago and me are related.

<sex-offender-register>

Andus McCoatover

"I thought chances of survival and a mutation succeeding was not just down to chances of survival, but also successful breeding. If it was an unwanted mutation, our ancestors at the time would not have been attracted to the new eyes?"

An interesting point, but instead you have to consider that the first human being with the blue-eyed gene probably did not have blue eyes, and neither did any of his/her children.

As a genetic trait, blue eyes are seemingly recessive, so you would need two blue-eye genes to have blue eyes. The gene may have passed for any number of generations before the first actual blue-eyed human was born, and the survival of the gene would not have been dependent on this individual. In fact, the sexual attractiveness of blue eyes may have had a negligible effect on the spread of the gene for the first hundred years of its existence, hence Eiberg describing it as neutral.

Anonymous Coward

okay maybe not chances of survival, but one look at the esteemed and fantastically pretty Miss Hilton will convince even the most hardened Darwinist that it will increase the chance of breeding.